Wazamono question

[REY0010]

I’m pretty new to the world of nihonto and was hoping you might be able to help me with a question I have? Ive occasionally heard the word “Wazamono” used in describing some blades in this forum, so I tried to find out more online. From what I can gather, it was a word describing sharpness of blades during a certain time period when blades were tested by cutting people. Are blades that are made by the smiths described as wazamonos made to a superior level? For instance are the wazamono swordsmiths the best Smith’s? Would these particular swords be more valuable and of a higher quality, or was wazamono simply a word used to describe a sword’s sharpness based upon the smith that made it? Thanks a lot

-Ryan

[PNSSHOGUN]

In the upper levels of Wazamono there are often superior ranked smiths but there are also many top levels smiths at all Wazamono rankings and vice versa. If memory serves me right for a smith to be given a certain Wazamono ranking a sample of 10(?) swords would be tested, the higher the number of blades to successfully cut through the prescribed stack of corpses the higher the Wazamono ranking. To answer your question directly the smith, or in some cases a group of smiths/school, was given the Wazamono ranking, not individual swords. There are certainly individual swords that are renowned for their cutting ability and are named as such and there are quite a number of swords that have cutting tests inscribed on the Nakago. Which is a direct link to the Wazamono rankings as the tests were often performed by a member of the Yamada family. There is a correlation between superior smiths and superior cutting performance but it's not set in stone and only takes into account the performance of the sword, not any other factors that are important in judging the quality of a sword today.

[Stephen]

https://japaneseswordindex.com/sharp.htm